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  I lay in my bed, searching in vain for what was now lost. Seeing nothing for several minutes, I turned my mind to Nicholas and remembered his handsome face. The way his lips were soft and full, perfect for kissing. The way he looked down at me through lowered lashes...so damn sexy I could scream.

  I muffled my face with the pillow and let out a tiny yelp of frustration. Why can’t he be here? Why can’t I see him every day? Why can’t I be the kind of girl he’d be interested in?

  Ugh! Why did I even have to meet him?! Why? Just so I can be tortured by what I can’t have? Something I’ll never have?

  I squealed into the pillow again, gave it a quick bite, and tossed it across the room. Without thinking, I swished open the drapes, letting in the morning sun.

  So much for my grand plan for being ‘normal’.

  *****

  Ana poured us both a cup of tea and looked out at the water from her seat on the sundeck. “Such a glorious morning, isn’t it, Calista darling? Such splendid weather we are having. Doesn’t it make you feel just wonderful inside?”

  “Uh, nice try, Ana. Not fooling anyone. Empathion, remember?” I chided, pointing to myself. Something was very wrong, and she was nearly making herself sick over it. Her feelings had become mine, and the longer she dragged this out the worse it was for both of us. Whatever it was she was so afraid to tell me needed to come out. Now. I’d only been sitting beside her for a few minutes, and already I thought I might throw up.

  “Yes, of course, dear. Forgive me. I…I just would like to enjoy some time with my granddaughter without always having to be the bearer of life-altering news,” she said with a sad smile.

  Now I really felt bad. I hadn’t meant to be rude, but she didn’t understand that however miserable something was making her, it had the same effect on me. Worse even, because I didn’t know what it was that was causing me to feel so awful.

  Ana sipped her tea. When she noticed I’d finished mine, she quickly poured me another cup. “What’s that?” I asked motioning to the small box on the table.

  “This is a very special present. I’ll give it to you shortly, when we go back upstairs. But please, do finish your tea first.”

  My nerves settled somewhat as I downed my second cup. Whatever it was that’d been worrying Ana so much, she seemed to have regained some of her composure. She finished her tea, stood up and motioned for me to follow. I stole one last glance out to the beach, stupidly hoping to catch sight of Nicholas and Max. But of course, they weren’t there. With a small sigh, I followed Ana up to the small, gloomy room.

  But as I passed through the narrow doorway, I gasped…shocked. Am I hallucinating? How is this even possible?

  Strange writings and symbols covered the previously bare walls, and the ceiling was substantially higher than it was yesterday. There was even a row of large, stained-glass windows where before there’d been a solid wall. The room was easily three times larger than it was less than twenty-four hours ago.

  “Ana, is this the same room we were in yesterday?” I asked. But I already knew the answer. There was the same round table and couch.

  “Yes, why? Does it seem different to you today?” she asked with piqued interest.

  “Well, yeah! I mean, look at the windows, and the drawings on the walls. Those weren’t there yesterday. And the ceiling is so much higher now.” I walked over to a wall and looked more closely at the pictures. Some looked like foreign writing, others like celestial symbols of suns, moons and stars.

  She gave me a cryptic smile and sat down on the couch. “Your eyes are beginning to see what before had been hidden from you. It won’t be long now…”

  “What won’t be long?” I took off my glasses and wiped them clean. When I put them back on everything was still there. What in the world? Did she spike my tea with LSD?

  “Come now, sit beside me.” She patted the couch. I left the wall with the bizarre writing and joined her. On the table lay a large, white album and a notebook filled with newspaper clippings that hadn’t been there yesterday.

  “Did your father tell you about the school?” she asked.

  “St. Morgan’s? Yeah, he mentioned it. Thanks for getting me in. Dad said it’s a real good school.”

  She nodded proudly. “It’s one of the finest, and I hope you’ll be very happy there. It’s the best place for a girl with your…abilities.”

  “Is it a magic school or something?”

  She laughed. “No, no. It’s quite normal, I assure you. But you will find some friendly faces there.”

  Well, that would be a nice change.

  I reached for the book. “What’s this?”

  “We’ll get to that in a moment. First I want to give you this.” She pulled out the small box from earlier and opened it. “This is a very special gift made especially for you.”

  She gently opened the small gilded case and took out a necklace formed in the shape of three moons –a full moon with a crescent moon on either side, just like the drawing I had seen on the wall. Except for the fact that it was made from a strange orange-colored stone unlike any I’d ever seen before, it appeared to be an ordinary necklace.

  “I need to tell you something.” Ana caressed the stone softly. “I don’t want you to be afraid, but it’s important that you are aware of your circumstances. All of my land is heavily enchanted with spells to disguise and protect us. While on my grounds and the surrounding beaches you are safe, but you won’t always be here.” She paused and drew a deep breath, her nervousness palpable.

  “What is it? Safe from what?” I frowned, confused.

  “As a young witch new to the craft, you’re vulnerable. That’s why Cleopatra, Arianna, and Jackson were here yesterday…they are three very powerful stone-casters. They made you this amulet to prevent you from being detected. As long as you are wearing it you will be safe.”

  She started to place the necklace around my neck, but I jerked away. I wasn’t feeling Ana’s fear now, I was feeling my own. “Safe from what? Am I in some sort of danger? Does someone want to hurt me?”

  She sighed, and I could tell she did not want to answer me. I thought it a reasonable question considering she was asking me to wear some sort of magical talisman.

  “A witch has many enemies, natural and unnatural. I would rather err on the side of excessive caution, than be reckless and risk losing you like I lost Gabriella. I simply could not stand it if anything were to happen to you!” She covered her face with her hands.

  “Ana, please, just tell me what is going on. What are you so afraid will happen to me?”

  I felt her conflicted emotions run through me. She was trying to protect me, not frighten me. But her silence was making things worse.

  “There are many wonderful blessings that come with being a witch,” she finally said. “But unfortunately, there are also dangers. One in particular has been of great concern to a number of us recently.”

  She opened the notebook and spread out the newspaper clippings in front of us. They were from all over…San Francisco, Houston, Kansas City, Miami, even Canada and Ireland. The oldest was dated about five years ago, the most recent, from only last month. They all were about the same thing, the mysterious disappearance or murders of young girls.

  “What is this?” I whispered, my stomach churning.

  Ana’s voice quivered as she answered.

  “I believe, as do some others, that it is the work of the Witch-Hunters.”

  Chapter 8. Hunted

  “Witch-Hunters…” I repeated. That doesn’t sound good.

  “Yes.” Ana let out a heavy sigh. “As the legend goes, many hundreds of years ago, a small coven of evil witches wiped out a village somewhere in Eastern Europe. The few villagers who managed to survive banded together and asked the Gypsies for help.”

  “Gypsies are magical, too?”

  “Not in the way we are. Their magics are learned, not inherited, and greatly limited—mostly to curses and visions. But what they can do, they do very w
ell.”

  She leaned back on the couch and clasped her hands together in her lap. “According to the legend, the survivors wanted revenge on the witches who destroyed their families. The Gypsies not only gave these humans the power to seek out all witches, but cursed them with the unyielding need to kill them... and the abilities to do so.”

  “Wait, I thought you said witches were good. Why would they kill innocent people?”

  Ana lowered her eyes, and I felt her profound sadness. “I said most witches are good. However, you must understand that witches are still human, and therefore have their own ideas about what is good and what isn’t. Some feel they have the right to use their powers to dominate others. Some practice dark magics we do not condone. There are many magical covens all over the world, and while most adhere to certain standards of morality and responsibility, sadly, the same cannot be said for all of them. Much like regular people in that regard, I’m afraid.”

  I leaned forward and flipped through the clippings. Faces of young girls…my age. “So some bad witches killed some people hundreds of years ago and now my life is in danger?”

  “Hopefully not—your life being in danger, that is. That’s what the amulet is designed to prevent. When you wear it, you’ll be disguised as a normal human girl. A completely non-magical human child and therefore not detectable by any possible Hunters.”

  I closed the book and stood up, my hands clenched at my sides. “But why target me? Why us? Why not just the witches who hurt them…or no one at all, seeing as how it happened hundreds of years ago and they are all long gone by now?”

  “There is much we don’t know about the Hunters, I’m afraid. As far as we can tell, they make no distinction between ‘good’ witches and ‘bad’ witches. They see us only as ‘witches’. Something foul and unnatural and capable of causing great harm. And as to why they’d continue to hunt us after all this time, a Gypsy’s curse is everlasting…it only goes away when it is lifted by one of their elders. Some families have been cursed for generations, as the sins of one man are suffered by his great-great-great grandsons.”

  I glanced around the room, half-hoping someone would jump out with a hidden camera and reveal this was all an elaborate hoax. A sick joke.

  I waited. No camera. No hoax.

  No joke.

  “These Hunters...they’re human?” I asked, my mouth suddenly dry.

  “Yes.”

  I swallowed, but it felt like a sock was lodged in my throat. “So if a Hunter is just a human with a curse, what makes them so dangerous? We have powers. Not really fighting powers, but still...”

  “From what little we know, it’s the very fact that they are human that makes them dangerous. A natural witch who has come into her full powers can sense the presence of another witch, but we cannot sense a Hunter. Yet they can recognize us. We don’t know how they lure their prey, or whether they’re known to their victims ahead of time.”

  Ana got up and moved over to a window, her face drawn.

  “Over the past few centuries, only a few young witches have managed to survive a Hunter’s attack, yet we believe dozens have been killed. The Hunters are strong, but the curse grants them only limited immunity from a witch’s powers. That is why they target the young ones who have not yet developed all their abilities. Ones like you. That is why they are so dangerous.”

  I felt sick. Was this the tradeoff for being a witch? People hunting me and wanting to kill me for something that wasn’t even my fault? For something that happened hundreds of years before I was even born?

  I joined her by the window. From here, we could see the cottage where Dad and I lived. For a moment I wanted to leave…to go back to the smelly shack in Basile, Louisiana and forget all about being a witch. Pretend I never heard about any of this.

  “Calista,” Ana said quietly, “this was something you needed to know. As much as it pains me to cause you any distress, the truth is, you have been in danger since the day you were born. At least now I can protect you, and you can protect yourself.”

  “Why now?” I asked, staring out the stained glass window. “Why, if I’m in so much danger, did you wait so long to find me?” My voice sounded more hostile than I meant it to.

  “Well, first of all, no one was even aware that you existed. No one but me, that is. And even I was not entirely sure…I just had a feeling you were alive. When Gabriella herself was just a child, I had foreseen her having a child. But after she disappeared any visions I had of her and her future disappeared with her.” Her voice was sad.

  “After Gabby left, I tried to find her,” she continued. “Not to force her to come home; I knew I would never be able to do that. But I wanted to keep an eye on her…make sure she was safe. But if a witch does not want to be found, she won’t be. Gabby cloaked herself with a very powerful spell that made it impossible for me to find even the slightest trace of her. I suspect she put one on you as well, shortly before you were born.”

  I turned to face her. “So she made herself…and me…invisible to you so you couldn’t find us?”

  “Yes, in theory. Although it wasn’t just me she was hiding from. We presume she didn’t want anyone to find her. When she left here, she renounced a life of magic altogether, and I can only assume that she wanted to keep your existence off the mystical radar as well.”

  “What happened between you guys? Why did she leave?”

  She motioned me back over to the sofa and opened the white book on the table. A wedding album.

  “This is Arthur and me,” she said, pointing to the young, smiling couple dressed in wedding attire. “Arthur was my husband and Gabrielle’s father…your grandfather.” She flipped through the pages slowly.

  Arthur and Ana made a handsome and enviable couple. Clearly in love, they didn’t appear to have a care in the world. In every picture he beamed at her lovingly, and she looked at him with utter adoration.

  “Gabriella was born a few years after we married,” she said, turning a few pages to where they were holding a newborn child in their arms.

  “From the moment she was born, Arthur was head-over-heels in love with his beautiful daughter, and from the time she could walk and talk, Arthur was the greatest thing in Gabriella’s world. They were as close as a father and daughter could be. Everything was wonderful; Gabby came into her powers so naturally, and this allowed her to bond even more with Arthur.”

  “He knew that she was a witch?” I asked. “How come he knew the secret and my father can’t?”

  Ana smiled weakly. “Arthur was a sorcerer. Male witches are not nearly as common as female ones, so they’re quite the catch,” she said with a wink.

  It hadn’t even crossed my mind that there may be male witches floating around; I’d thought they’d only be female. “Is that what they’re called—sorcerers?” I asked.

  “It depends. The older ones usually refer to themselves that way, or as wizards. The younger men like to call themselves warlocks.” She chuckled, a hint of sadness in the depths of her eyes. “And they say women can’t make up their minds.”

  “You all look so happy,” I said wistfully as I looked at their smiling faces.

  “We were. Beyond our wildest dreams. Until one terrible day just after Gabriella turned sixteen years old. I was away, and she and Arthur were alone in the house. They were attacked by other witches, enemies of ours, who’d been causing problems in our city. I came home to find him dead in her arms.”

  I sat in stunned silence, absorbing what she’d just told me. That explained why my mom looked so sad and angry in those pictures—they were taken after her father had been murdered.

  “Gabby never recovered from her father’s death,” Ana continued solemnly. “And she never forgave me.”

  “You? Why would she blame you?”

  “After Arthur’s murder she was understandably distraught; she took it very, very badly. First, she sank into a deep mourning, which I feared she would never come out of. But when she finally did, she emerged with
a rage and desire for revenge that frightened even me. Naturally we were all devastated by Arthur’s death. He was… and still is...the love of my life. But something snapped in Gabby. She wanted blood.”

  Ana glanced away, but not before I caught the tiny tear in her eye.

  “Without any of us knowing, she began to hunt the wizards who’d killed her father. It was only sheer luck that a few of us discovered what she was up to and were able to stop her in time. She would almost certainly have died had she followed through with her plans.”

  “So she was mad because you made her stop?”

  “Yes, but also because our coven decided to temporarily bind most of her powers until she had come to terms with what happened. She was like a loaded gun, and we could not risk any harm coming to her, or risk our own exposure.” Ana stealthily wiped her cheek.

  “And that’s when she ran away?” I whispered.

  Ana nodded. “Yes. One day we had a terrible argument…the worst of several. She disappeared during the night and I never saw or heard from her again.”

  “But…you have powers. Why couldn’t you stop her? Or find her?” I asked.

  “Every witch has one special talent that is stronger than the rest. Gabby’s was spell-casting. Once she left, she was able to cloak her plans from my visions and hide herself. There was nothing that I or anyone else could do.”

  “What happened after she left?” I’d never heard this much about my mother, and I was morbidly fascinated by Ana’s tale, even if it was tragic. At least it was something.

  “I can only speculate…she either gave up her quest to exact revenge on those who killed her father, or she was successful in her attempt. Either way, she left no trace of anything behind her. And if it wasn’t for your existence I would probably have concluded that she died long before she did.”

  “Well, how did you find me then?”

  “Because Gabby and I have a connection – the spiritual and emotional bond between mother and daughter is the strongest connection there is. And although she hid herself from me, some of her spirit lives on within you. When you performed your magics, a tiny glimmer showed up on my Looking Stone. For a long time it was too faint to trace, but eventually I was able to track you down.”